The invention pertains to the field of jet technology, primarily to pumping-ejection units for producing a vacuum and for compression of gaseous mediums.
An operating process of a pumping ejector system is known, which consists of delivery of a liquid medium under pressure into the nozzle of a liquid-gas ejector by a pump, forming of a liquid jet at the outlet of the nozzle and evacuation of a gaseous medium by this jet, mixing of the liquid and the gaseous mediums and obtaining a gas-liquid stream, discharge of the gas-liquid stream from the ejector into drainage (see "Jet Apparatuses", book of E. Y. Sokolov, N. M. Zinger, "Energia" Publishing house, Moscow, 1970, pages 214-215).
The same book introduces a pumping ejector system having a pump and a liquid-gas ejector, wherein the pump is connected by its discharge side to the ejector's nozzle, the ejector's inlet of the passive gaseous medium is connected to a source of the evacuated medium and the ejector's outlet is connected to drainage.
The described operating process and system for its embodiment have not found wide industrial application because discharge of the gas-liquid mixture into [the] drainage often results in environmental pollution and the system's operation requires high consumption of a liquid medium. The latter makes the system economically unattractive.
The closest analogue of the operating process introduced by the present invention is an operating process of a pumping-ejector unit, which includes delivery of a liquid medium from a separator into the nozzle, or several nozzles, of a liquid-gas ejector by a pump, evacuation of a gaseous medium by a jet of the liquid motive medium, mixing of the mediums in the ejector and forming of a gas-liquid flow with simultaneous compression of the gaseous medium (see RU, patent, 2091117, cl. B 01 D Mar. 10, 1997).
The same RU patent also describes a pumping-ejector unit for embodiment of the process. It includes a separator, a pump and a liquid-gas ejector. The liquid inlet of the ejector is connected to the discharge side of the pump and the gas inlet of the ejector is connected to a source of an evacuated gaseous medium.
With this operational process and related pumping-ejector unit it is possible to reduce energy consumption because the liquid-gas ejector is placed at a height of 5 to 35 meters above the separator and thus provides utilisation of gravitational forces in the delivery pipe connecting the ejector and separator.
But together with this positive effect such a design also has a significant imperfection concerned with the fact, that a high-altitude position of the jet apparatus and a long delivery pipe provokes a jump of the gas-liquid flow's speed in the delivery pipe. As a result, speed of the gas-liquid flow at the separator's inlet, where a hydroseal is made, can reach hundreds of meters per second. Therefore there is a necessity to reinforce those elements of the separator which react to the increased load generated by the high-speed flow. This leads to an increase in the separator's dimensions and specific consumption of materials.